British regimental number research. First World War research. Military research. British Army regiments. Regimental numbering sequences between 1881 and 1918. Regimental number series. Other rank prisoners of war 1914.

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30 March 2016

This post will look at men serving with the Leinster Regiment who became prisoners of war on or before Christmas Day 1914. All of these men's names appear on a four-page typed list which was sent to Sir Ernest Goodhart on the 23rd December 1918 by the Leinster Regiment Prisoners of War Fund. The document is housed at the Imperial War Museum under B.O.2 1/258.

For background on this list and others I have published, read my post/index on the 1914 Other Rank PoWs.. With one or teo exceptions, the Leinster Regiment men noted below also have home or next of kin addresses noted against their names.

The full transcription of this list is available for sale as a download or CD for £20. Contact me if you would like to purchase a copy.

The photograph on this page shows a British PoW in the roll of Shylock at the Dulmen prison camp in 1918.

23 March 2016

I was in Wrexham not so long ago, and took the opportunity to stop by at St Giles Church. I'm glad I did so as there is a wealth of memorials to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (the old 23rd Foot) inside. Typically, in churches these days, many of the memorials are now half hidden or obscured, but there is a rather splendid memorial to those men who died during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 and the China campaign of 1900. In fact it is so good that I borrowed a step-ladder in order to photograph it head on rather than at an oblique angle. A very helpful church warden steadied the ladder for me at the bottom.

Where possible I have added the men's regimental numbers to their names and I will come to the numbering later.

Note the very obvious higher digit numbers for those men who served with the Volunteer Service Companies. I explained the reason behind this on another post all about Volunteer Service Companies in the Boer War.
For the other men, the regulars in the 1st and 2nd Battalions all drew their numbers from a single number series. There are some very long-serving men listed here whose numbers date back to the early 1880s. The 3rd and 4th Battalions each had a separate numbering series. and again, the difference between these number series and the series issued to the men of the regular battalions and the VSCs is very evident. I have to say, that it is also entirely coincidental.

16 March 2016

There's an impressive memorial in St Mary's Church, Warwick to the non commissioned officers and men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who lost their lives during the Sudan Campaign of 1898.
The names of the memorial are organised in order of seniority: non-commissioned officers first, followed by the men in order of length of service. The names appear in two columns and there are 49 casualties in all.
Colour Sergeant Doughty is the senior non-commissioned officer here and so his name appears at the top of the left-hand column. Sergeant Rea, as the longest serving sergeant, is the next most senior man and his name appears at the top of the right-hand column. Then it's sergeant Harrison on the left-hand column, Sergeant Stafford on the right-hand column and so on as you slalom down through the names. Here are the left hand-column names:
2578 Colour Sergeant H Doughty
2304 Sergeant W Harrison
3640 Sergeant G Gage
3250 Lance Corporal A Mitchell
1511 Private W Jones
3115 Lance Corporal W Vickers
3142 Private W Hale
3199 Private H Burrows
3313 Private F Bonehill
3404 Private A Power
3428 Private W Allkins
3611 Private G Clayton
3758 Private G Howling
3917 Private H Filkins
3990 Private T Raven
4067 Private J Wesker
4100 Private A Lockley
4125 Private F Gardner
4180 Private H Pettipher
4188 Private W Jackson4212 Lance Corporal G Henshaw
4462 Private W Ray
4512 Private T Hunt
4868 Private C Newton
6175 Private H Burley
And here are the right-hand column names. The numbering goes slightly out of sequence when we reach 4088 Private M Lee who is followed by 4075 Private T Daffern.
1667 Sergeant H Rea
3681 Sergeant A Stafford
759 Corporal J Hirons
4335 Lance Corporal G Upton
2321 Private C Pink
3137 Private H Jones
3174 Private W Dutton
3219 Private A Holt
3321 Private J Yates
3425 Private H Meredith
3468 Private T Worrall
3641 Private E Wilson
3825 Private J Close
3973 Private J Cox
4088 Private M Lee
4075 Private T Daffern
4103 Private W Worrall
4171 Private A Fisher
4182 Private J Freebury
4201 Private J Hubbard
4418 Private C B Lowe
4471 Private W Manners
4565 Private C Gibbons
4900 Private W Jones
The longest-serving man on this memorial is 759 Corporal Hirons who, judging by his regimental number, must have joined the regiment in 1883 and would have been well on the way to a pension. 1511 Private Jones joined in the second half of 1885 and 1667 Private H Rea in 1886, but the majority of the men listed here joined in the 1890s. Private Burley, with the regimental number 6175, is the man with least experience. His number dates to late July or early August 1898.

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7 March 2016

Royal Horse Artillery units were included in twelve of the fourteen pre-war Territorial Force Mounted Brigades, each of these formations consisting of one battery and one ammunition column.
Formed in 1908 and initially headquartered at Warwick Castle, the Warwickshire RHA moved in 1911 to 9 Clarendon Place, Leamington, with a drill station at Coventry. The ammunition column was also headquartered at Leamington with a drill station at Henley-in-Arden. The unit formed part of the 1st South Midland Mounted Brigade.
The following sequence of numbers between formation in 1908 and the outbreak of the First World War, gives some indication of just how slow recruitment into these Territorial Force RHA units could be.50 joined on 22nd May 1908105 joined on 15th November 1909218 joined on 11th September 1910232 joined on 24th February 1911276 joined on 5th May 1912321 joined on 22nd February 1913392 joined on 21st January 1914416 joined on 6th August 1914When the Territorial Force was re-numbered in 1917, men serving with this unit were issued with numbers in the range 614001 to 616000.
The image on this post is unrelated to the Warwickshire RHA, showing as it does, personnel from the King's Troop, RHA, at the Trooping of the Colour in 2012. Image courtesy Wikipedia.

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There are 282 South Staffordshire Regiment men listed in this prisoner of war roll-call; men who between them had solid soldiering experi...

Army Numbers

When did my relative enlist? When did my grandfather join up? On what date did he join his regiment?

A man's number can tell you a lot about when he joined and even which battalion he joined. Note however, that there is a distinction between "enlisted" and "joined".

A man would generally enlist once - and be given a service number - or army number - on joining his regiment. If he joined another regiment he would be given a different number.
He could even be given a different number if he joined another battalion of the same regiment. In all probability this number would not be unique and could be repeated in various battalions and regiments throughout the British Army.

This blog aims to guide the researcher through the maze of army numbers in the British Army.

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The Army Service Numbers Database

The Army Service Numbers database has been compiled from original sources - WO 363, WO 364, WO 97 and selected medal index cards housed at the National Archives in London.

I'm guessing that the database currently comprises around 40,000 records, although I've not counted it for a while. It covers most units of the British Army between the years 1881 and 1918: Infantry Regiments, Cavalry and Yeomanry, Royal Artillery and Royal Army Medical Corps.

Notable exclusions are The Labour Corps and The Army Service Corps. I do not hold data for these corps and neither have I attempted to work out meaning from their baffling service number series.

What you will find on this blog is data from a far larger data set - generally one number per year up until 1914 and then one number per month from August 1914 onwards.

As general rules:

1. Army Service numbers for regular battalions are uncomplicated and largely sequential up until 1914.

2. Numbering in the British Army becomes more complicated from December 1915.

3. The bulk of my data is for the years 1881-1916. I have limited data from 1917.